Producer of the Xbox gaming console, Microsoft purchased the video game holding company ZeniMax Media Inc for 7.5 Billion dollars on Sept. 21st. The sale will be finalized in the latter half of the 2021 fiscal year.
Zenimax, through its subsidiaries, owns intellectual property rights to the Doom, Quake, Rage, Wolfenstein, Fallout, and The Elder Scrolls franchise.
A brief explanation of the corporate entities: Microsoft is the company that manufactured the Xbox consoles, Xbox is its own division in the company. Sony manufactured the PlayStation consoles. ZeniMax Media Inc is a video game holding company that owns a controlling interest in a few companies. Bethesda Softworks is a video game production company owned by ZeniMax. Obsidian Entertainment is a game production company now owned by Microsoft and was contracted by Bethesda to make a game from a Bethesda owned franchise.
Sony and Microsoft have both announced their next-generation consoles, the Xbox Series X and the PlayStation 5. During the race to release them later this year, both companies are doing what they can to encourage people to buy their console.
Sony has highly acclaimed exclusive games like “God of War”, “The Last of Us”, “Spiderman” and “Bloodborne”. Microsoft has released the Xbox Game Pass, which is a monthly subscription service that allows the user to download to PC or console or play Netflix like library games from the cloud.
“We will be adding Bethesda’s iconic franchises to Xbox Game Pass for console and PC,” Xbox Chief Phil Spencer. Additionally, Bethesda games will arrive on the Xbox Game Pass the same day they launch otherwise for Xbox consoles and PC.
Zenimax subsidiary Bethesda was already working on games that are initially exclusive to Sony’s competing console the PlayStation 5: “Ghostwire: Tokyo” and “Deathloop.” The original agreement will be partially honored, and the games will be exclusive to the PlayStation 5 for a fixed period of time before immigrating to the Xbox consoles.
Future games, like Bethesda’s newest franchise “Starfield”, will be available for Xbox, PC, and Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass, excluding the PlayStation 5. “We’ll take other consoles on a case-by-case basis” Spencer said in a blog post.
Microsoft has been on a video game buying binge having bought five studios including Obsidian Entertainment in 2018 and Double Fine in 2019
Fans of the Fallout franchise have pointed out that because Microsoft already owned Obsidian Entertainment the producers of “Fallout New Vegas” and are currently acquiring the current copyright holder for Fallout that a “Fallout New Vegas” sequel or remake may be down the pipeline.
Bethesda contracted Obsidian Entertainment to create “Fallout New Vegas” because at that time Bethesda was busy working on “The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim” and didn’t have resources to dedicate to the Fallout franchise.